Research Plan Introduction
The purpose of our research is to gain a better understanding of how mentors and beginning teachers can benefit from professional opportunities that are offered through induction. Induction is the support and guidance provided to beginning teachers in the early stages of their careers. It encompasses orientation to the work place socialization, mentoring and guidance through beginning teacher practice. All teachers experience the challenges of the first year. Regardless of how prepared beginning teacher are, they still experience the thrills and spills of being a novice.
All teachers go through a cycle of learning in their first year, which includes anticipation, survival, disillusionment, rejuvenation, and reflection. In July and August, beginning teachers are excited about the thrill of finally having their very own classroom and their own students. Beginning teachers "fantasize" about how they will set up their classroom, the activities in which they will engage their students, and the meaningful learning that will happen in their classroom. There is a thrill and fear of the unknown, not only in the classroom itself, but also in the staffroom and playground. Once the school year starts in September, survival mode kicks in; the realities of the classroom are revealed. The lesson planning, marking, meets the teacher nights, staff meetings, committee meetings, and extracurricular expectations all start to sink in. The fabulous fantasy world of the classroom suddenly comes crashing down as beginning teachers realize that the classroom is quite a chaotic place. Disillusionment sets in during October, November, and December. As the days grow shorter, the list of the demands for the classroom increases. New questions about assessment, marking, report cards, parent-teacher interviews, planning, and covering the curriculum emerge. Unfortunately, this is the time that most teachers feel most alone. How is it possible for thirty "angelic" children to become terrors of the classroom? After the winter holidays, January, February, and March bring about rejuvenation and a more optimistic attitude. As the days now get longer, there is more hope. Beginning teachers have had at least half a year to establish rapport with their students and to understand the systems that have been established in the school. Report cards have gone out at least once and lesson plans have adapted, modified, and reworked several times through. The realities of marking have also been revealed and teachers now have a better understanding of when, how, and what to mark. The final months of the year, April, May, and June bring about reflection among beginning teachers. The teachers and students have survived and there is much to be grateful for. The cycle then repeats itself with anticipation, but beginning teachers now have a year under their belts.
We recognize that the challenges of the beginning teacher are a reality and they help to shape who we are both professionally and personally. Thus, supporting the experiences of new teachers is vital to the profession. As colleagues and teacher leaders, supporting new teachers and keeping them in the profession is extremely important. Understanding the needs of beginning teachers and best practice for induction will allow us to explore how we, as fellow teachers, can appropriately scaffold the learning of the beginning teachers. Teaching is a noble profession and beginning teachers should be given the best opportunities to experience it.
Research Lens
The main goal of this project is to research teachers’ experience with teacher induction. Although there has been much research conducted in the areas of teacher induction, mentoring, and retention, we wanted to clearly examine our personal experiences in relation to district support and academic literature. The personal experiences of our group are extremely valuable and will give authenticity to the project as we will be able to support patterns, concepts, and ideas with real lived examples and experiences.
We have chosen an ethnographic lens to approach our research, as our intent is to analyze values and patterns among a culture-sharing group. The culture-sharing group is a small group of high school teachers in both the public and private systems. Our experiences varied from formal structures involving orientations and scheduled meetings, to informal structures involving relaxed conversations and casual assistance from colleagues. Our experiences with the accessibility of induction support also varied; one of the districts we represent offered an involved and ambitious program, while the two other districts were more reserved and remote in operation. The methodology will be threefold and will involve: researcher as subject interviews, research about current induction programs in different districts, and a review of the academic research.
Although we could have chosen a number of different approaches to document and capture the experiences of the teachers, we will conduct researcher as subject interviews with each other to relate, unpack, and deconstruct our lived experiences. Given the scope of the project and the limited time available to us, we have selected interviews as the mode of research to delve into the varied experiences of beginning teachers who have encountered induction. We typify a valid subset of the teacher population with varied perspectives and observations that will make our research richer and more tangible to our audience. Semi-structured interviews will be used to ensure that we accurately capture the experiences. There will also be opportunities for the researchers to ask for elaboration or clarification.
Once the experiences have been documented, there will be a comparison to online and print documentation and the academic research. In this case, the number of districts will be restricted to the three in which we are currently working. While we recognize that induction support is often informal and undocumented, we felt that it was important to compare experiences with the stated goals and intent of the districts. Likewise, we felt that it was beneficial to compare our findings to the academic research. As mentioned earlier, there is a large body of information about induction, mentoring, and teacher retention. It will be interesting to see how our experiences are situated within the findings.
Methodology and Analysis of Data Question:
What Are Teachers’ Experiences With Induction? Hypothesis:
Both mentors and beginning teachers benefit from the professional development offered through induction. Subjects:
Three high school teachers will be the subjects of the interviews. The teachers represent the public and private sector, have four to nine years of teaching experience and have varying degrees of induction support. They have also taught in a variety of teaching areas (Science, Computer Technology, English, Social Studies, Mathematics, ESL). Data Collection: Interviews:
Data will be collected through semi-structured interviews. The participants will be given two weeks to independently respond, in writing, to the interview questions. The purpose of this is to ensure that participants have enough time to formulate their answers. Participants are also asked to respond to the questions in writing so that no information will be missed.
Once the written responses are collected, the researchers will be given the opportunity to read through the responses. If clarification is needed for any of the responses, the researcher will have the opportunity to perform an online or oral follow-up interview with the respondent. Again, this method is being used to ensure that the responses are clearly understood.
Potential Interview Questions:
The following are the potential written-interview questions our researchers as subjects will be asked to answer. The purpose of the questions is to gain an understanding of the context of the participants teaching and induction experiences; initially as a classroom teacher and now potentially as a mentor.
1. How many years have you been teaching? In what context?
2. Describe your experiences with teacher induction.
3. Did you feel supported in your first five years of teaching?
4. What was your best support during your first five years of teaching?
5. How do you wish you had been better supported during your first five years of teaching?
6. How do you think induction should be implemented?
7. What supports would you continue to recommend? Why?
8. What are the advantages/disadvantages of induction?
9. Do you think teacher induction has value? Why or why not?
10. Have you ever been a mentor? (Informal or Formal)
11. What were your experiences as a mentor?
12. From a mentor’s perspective, what supports do you think beginning teachers need?
13. As a mentor, how could you have been better supported? CodingProcess:
Once all of the answers to the interview questions have been transcribed, the researchers will code the data. Despite the unique experiences of each of the teachers, we know that there will likely be some trends and patterns. It is premature for us to determine the themes for these interviews, and as such we will let our data be our guide. Analysis:
The patterns that will be generated through the coding process will allow us to compare our three perspectives of personal experience, district support structures, and academic research. Will we use the four themes (beginning teacher experiences, program implementation and components, implications for the educational system, and mentor experiences) that were manifested in the literature to aid in our analysis. We recognize that other themes may exist in conjunction with these four and are fully prepared to embrace them in our investigation. Comparison of district documents Between districts
Within the three different districts, we will investigate what is said about induction in the public documents. Each district has a unique structure for supporting beginning teachers. The public online and print material will be used to gain an understanding of the support structures available to beginning teachers. Throughout research we will try to gain a comprehensive picture of what is offered. We have specifically chosen to gain a look at public documents because this is often how beginning teachers research and explore available programs. In addition to understanding the documents themselves, we will compare their accessibility.
To personal experiences
Given that each district supports beginning teachers differently, a comparison of the available structures will be compared to the documented experiences. It should be noted here that inasmuch as we know, none of the induction supports/programs have changed significantly since we started our teaching careers. As a result, we feel that it would be suitable to make a comparison between the personal experiences and documented supports.
Comparison of academic research To district supports
As each district has designed activities and programs to support beginning teachers, we will examine how these supports are positioned in relation to the academic research. Investigating how the activities and programs are situated is important because there may be certain theories or trends that have guided how the induction programs have been implemented. These comparisons will also allow us to examine how the existing programs could be changed or modified to improve the experiences of both the mentors and the beginning teachers.
To personal experiences
The personal experiences of each of the subjects will then be compared to the academic research. As mentioned in the literature review, there were four broad categories: beginning teacher experiences, program implementation and components, implications for the educational system, and mentor experiences. While these categories are not mutually exclusive, they will help to guide us in making comparisons between stated intentions and experiences, best practice, and what researchers have concluded. This section will be especially relevant as we begin to explore how pre-service programs, school districts, schools, administrators, and fellow colleagues can continue to support beginning teachers through the developmental process of a teacher.
Venn Diagram of Research Approach Timeline:
The following is a proposed timeline of activities: · December - data collection: interviews · Janurary - transcription and coding · Feburary - data analysis · March - conclusion, final paper and presentation
Study Limitations
As with any research, we acknowledge that there will be several limitations that will affect our data collection and how we interpret the information. Although we acknowledge that these limitations exist, we know that we will be able to draw some conclusions about induction experiences and how to best support beginning teachers. Time:
Time will be a major limitation in this study. First, the time to complete this investigation is extremely limited. As this is a three credit UBC course, our final results will have to be completed for the mid-March final product presentation. The time frame in which we have to conduct, analyze, and complete this research is scant. This is precisely why we have chosen to conduct researcher as subject interviews. Exploring the experiences of each other’s is not only valuable, but also practical. Completing a plethora of interviews could be beneficial, but would require us to gain access to districts and teachers. Given the busy schedules of classroom teachers, we deemed that conducting interviews in person or in a survey format might not give us sufficient or accurate information, as teachers would be rushed to provide feedback about their experiences about their induction experiences. Therefore, we felt that interviews of the researchers would be valuable as they represent a cross-section of experiences and the researchers as subjects would have the time to answer the questions thoroughly.
Likewise, as we are all working full time, the ability to complete extensive research is restricted. Given the every day demands of schools and students, we wanted to ensure that the project was not only feasible, but also practical and interesting. Having personal meaning and a connection to the research is very important to us as researchers.
Sample Size:
The sample size for this study will be 3 (n=3). Although the sample size is small, we know that we will still be able to collect valuable information about induction experiences as the participants’ teaching and induction experiences are varied. A small sample size will allow the researchers to go deeper into the experiences, instead of giving a simple, broad overview.
Demographics:
The research will be restricted to high school teachers. This was a practical limitation. Of course we acknowledge that the experiences of elementary school teachers are just as valuable and future research can be done in this area.
Body of research:
The sheer volume of research about induction is overwhelming. While there is a large body of research, we are only examining a small piece of it. We acknowledge that there have been numerous studies in the area of induction and we appreciate the fact that we are not the only ones interested in this subject. We are grateful that we can build upon the findings of other.
Generalizations:
Lastly, despite the fact that the experiences of the participants are worthwhile and give a good snapshot of induction experiences, we understand and acknowledge that we will not be able to make generalizations about our conclusions because of our small sample size. Generalizations cannot be justified from research that is limited in both scope and size.
Answering the Research Question
The analysis of our data will allow us to see the patterns and trends of how districts support beginning teachers. We will find the trends in the interviews, and make comparisons between the district documents, the interviews, and the academic research. In determining how we will answer the question of our research, we must revisit who is the intended audience of our findings. The form in which we present our findings must have a functional purpose.
School Districts:
The school district can be seen as the genesis site of teacher induction policy. Districts will exist along a continuum when it comes to the conception, implementation, and analysis of this policy. Our goal is to make recommendations for school districts such that they will find something applicable regardless of the stage of development they may be in when it comes to beginning teacher support.
Schools and Administrators:
The way in which school-based administrators view teacher induction policies impacts its implementation (Youngs, 2007). In a formal leadership role, administrators have the ability to direct the culture of a school towards one that fully integrates teacher induction practice into the daily working lives of teachers or one which treats it like an activity for the side-lines. Our goal is to provide administrators with evidence of the value of beginning teacher induction.
Teachers:
The teachers represent the invaluable role of both former receivers of induction and potential providers of induction through mentorship opportunities. The answer to our research question will be wide-ranging, as beginning teacher experiences vary immensely. However, our analysis of teacher experience will serve as a springboard from which others can build upon. Our results will validate the experiences of all those who are exposed to teachers induction. Teachers can take our findings and use them to enrich their own understanding and practice as either the recipient or provider of beginning teacher support through induction.
Conclusion
Beginning teachers find their first years challenging. They enter the system with an optimistic view with particular educational values. However, as they struggle to navigate the day to day obstacles of the classroom, they find that they have to abandon many of their pre-conceived notions to survive. This is why our research into teacher induction is invaluable. This support can help beginning teachers survive their first few years while fortifying and sustaining their educational beliefs.
Introduction
The purpose of our research is to gain a better understanding of how mentors and beginning teachers can benefit from professional opportunities that are offered through induction. Induction is the support and guidance provided to beginning teachers in the early stages of their careers. It encompasses orientation to the work place socialization, mentoring and guidance through beginning teacher practice. All teachers experience the challenges of the first year. Regardless of how prepared beginning teacher are, they still experience the thrills and spills of being a novice.
All teachers go through a cycle of learning in their first year, which includes anticipation, survival, disillusionment, rejuvenation, and reflection. In July and August, beginning teachers are excited about the thrill of finally having their very own classroom and their own students. Beginning teachers "fantasize" about how they will set up their classroom, the activities in which they will engage their students, and the meaningful learning that will happen in their classroom. There is a thrill and fear of the unknown, not only in the classroom itself, but also in the staffroom and playground. Once the school year starts in September, survival mode kicks in; the realities of the classroom are revealed. The lesson planning, marking, meets the teacher nights, staff meetings, committee meetings, and extracurricular expectations all start to sink in. The fabulous fantasy world of the classroom suddenly comes crashing down as beginning teachers realize that the classroom is quite a chaotic place. Disillusionment sets in during October, November, and December. As the days grow shorter, the list of the demands for the classroom increases. New questions about assessment, marking, report cards, parent-teacher interviews, planning, and covering the curriculum emerge. Unfortunately, this is the time that most teachers feel most alone. How is it possible for thirty "angelic" children to become terrors of the classroom? After the winter holidays, January, February, and March bring about rejuvenation and a more optimistic attitude. As the days now get longer, there is more hope. Beginning teachers have had at least half a year to establish rapport with their students and to understand the systems that have been established in the school. Report cards have gone out at least once and lesson plans have adapted, modified, and reworked several times through. The realities of marking have also been revealed and teachers now have a better understanding of when, how, and what to mark. The final months of the year, April, May, and June bring about reflection among beginning teachers. The teachers and students have survived and there is much to be grateful for. The cycle then repeats itself with anticipation, but beginning teachers now have a year under their belts.
We recognize that the challenges of the beginning teacher are a reality and they help to shape who we are both professionally and personally. Thus, supporting the experiences of new teachers is vital to the profession. As colleagues and teacher leaders, supporting new teachers and keeping them in the profession is extremely important. Understanding the needs of beginning teachers and best practice for induction will allow us to explore how we, as fellow teachers, can appropriately scaffold the learning of the beginning teachers. Teaching is a noble profession and beginning teachers should be given the best opportunities to experience it.
Research Lens
The main goal of this project is to research teachers’ experience with teacher induction. Although there has been much research conducted in the areas of teacher induction, mentoring, and retention, we wanted to clearly examine our personal experiences in relation to district support and academic literature. The personal experiences of our group are extremely valuable and will give authenticity to the project as we will be able to support patterns, concepts, and ideas with real lived examples and experiences.
We have chosen an ethnographic lens to approach our research, as our intent is to analyze values and patterns among a culture-sharing group. The culture-sharing group is a small group of high school teachers in both the public and private systems. Our experiences varied from formal structures involving orientations and scheduled meetings, to informal structures involving relaxed conversations and casual assistance from colleagues. Our experiences with the accessibility of induction support also varied; one of the districts we represent offered an involved and ambitious program, while the two other districts were more reserved and remote in operation. The methodology will be threefold and will involve: researcher as subject interviews, research about current induction programs in different districts, and a review of the academic research.
Although we could have chosen a number of different approaches to document and capture the experiences of the teachers, we will conduct researcher as subject interviews with each other to relate, unpack, and deconstruct our lived experiences. Given the scope of the project and the limited time available to us, we have selected interviews as the mode of research to delve into the varied experiences of beginning teachers who have encountered induction. We typify a valid subset of the teacher population with varied perspectives and observations that will make our research richer and more tangible to our audience. Semi-structured interviews will be used to ensure that we accurately capture the experiences. There will also be opportunities for the researchers to ask for elaboration or clarification.
Once the experiences have been documented, there will be a comparison to online and print documentation and the academic research. In this case, the number of districts will be restricted to the three in which we are currently working. While we recognize that induction support is often informal and undocumented, we felt that it was important to compare experiences with the stated goals and intent of the districts. Likewise, we felt that it was beneficial to compare our findings to the academic research. As mentioned earlier, there is a large body of information about induction, mentoring, and teacher retention. It will be interesting to see how our experiences are situated within the findings.
Methodology and Analysis of Data
Question:
What Are Teachers’ Experiences With Induction?
Hypothesis:
Both mentors and beginning teachers benefit from the professional development offered through induction.
Subjects:
Three high school teachers will be the subjects of the interviews. The teachers represent the public and private sector, have four to nine years of teaching experience and have varying degrees of induction support. They have also taught in a variety of teaching areas (Science, Computer Technology, English, Social Studies, Mathematics, ESL).
Data Collection:
Interviews:
Data will be collected through semi-structured interviews. The participants will be given two weeks to independently respond, in writing, to the interview questions. The purpose of this is to ensure that participants have enough time to formulate their answers. Participants are also asked to respond to the questions in writing so that no information will be missed.
Once the written responses are collected, the researchers will be given the opportunity to read through the responses. If clarification is needed for any of the responses, the researcher will have the opportunity to perform an online or oral follow-up interview with the respondent. Again, this method is being used to ensure that the responses are clearly understood.
Potential Interview Questions:
The following are the potential written-interview questions our researchers as subjects will be asked to answer. The purpose of the questions is to gain an understanding of the context of the participants teaching and induction experiences; initially as a classroom teacher and now potentially as a mentor.
1. How many years have you been teaching? In what context?
2. Describe your experiences with teacher induction.
3. Did you feel supported in your first five years of teaching?
4. What was your best support during your first five years of teaching?
5. How do you wish you had been better supported during your first five years of teaching?
6. How do you think induction should be implemented?
7. What supports would you continue to recommend? Why?
8. What are the advantages/disadvantages of induction?
9. Do you think teacher induction has value? Why or why not?
10. Have you ever been a mentor? (Informal or Formal)
11. What were your experiences as a mentor?
12. From a mentor’s perspective, what supports do you think beginning teachers need?
13. As a mentor, how could you have been better supported?
Coding Process:
Once all of the answers to the interview questions have been transcribed, the researchers will code the data. Despite the unique experiences of each of the teachers, we know that there will likely be some trends and patterns. It is premature for us to determine the themes for these interviews, and as such we will let our data be our guide.
Analysis:
The patterns that will be generated through the coding process will allow us to compare our three perspectives of personal experience, district support structures, and academic research. Will we use the four themes (beginning teacher experiences, program implementation and components, implications for the educational system, and mentor experiences) that were manifested in the literature to aid in our analysis. We recognize that other themes may exist in conjunction with these four and are fully prepared to embrace them in our investigation.
Comparison of district documents
Between districts
Within the three different districts, we will investigate what is said about induction in the public documents. Each district has a unique structure for supporting beginning teachers. The public online and print material will be used to gain an understanding of the support structures available to beginning teachers. Throughout research we will try to gain a comprehensive picture of what is offered. We have specifically chosen to gain a look at public documents because this is often how beginning teachers research and explore available programs. In addition to understanding the documents themselves, we will compare their accessibility.
To personal experiences
Given that each district supports beginning teachers differently, a comparison of the available structures will be compared to the documented experiences. It should be noted here that inasmuch as we know, none of the induction supports/programs have changed significantly since we started our teaching careers. As a result, we feel that it would be suitable to make a comparison between the personal experiences and documented supports.
Comparison of academic research
To district supports
As each district has designed activities and programs to support beginning teachers, we will examine how these supports are positioned in relation to the academic research. Investigating how the activities and programs are situated is important because there may be certain theories or trends that have guided how the induction programs have been implemented. These comparisons will also allow us to examine how the existing programs could be changed or modified to improve the experiences of both the mentors and the beginning teachers.
To personal experiences
The personal experiences of each of the subjects will then be compared to the academic research. As mentioned in the literature review, there were four broad categories: beginning teacher experiences, program implementation and components, implications for the educational system, and mentor experiences. While these categories are not mutually exclusive, they will help to guide us in making comparisons between stated intentions and experiences, best practice, and what researchers have concluded. This section will be especially relevant as we begin to explore how pre-service programs, school districts, schools, administrators, and fellow colleagues can continue to support beginning teachers through the developmental process of a teacher.
Venn Diagram of Research Approach
Timeline:
The following is a proposed timeline of activities:
· December - data collection: interviews
· Janurary - transcription and coding
· Feburary - data analysis
· March - conclusion, final paper and presentation
Study Limitations
As with any research, we acknowledge that there will be several limitations that will affect our data collection and how we interpret the information. Although we acknowledge that these limitations exist, we know that we will be able to draw some conclusions about induction experiences and how to best support beginning teachers.
Time:
Time will be a major limitation in this study. First, the time to complete this investigation is extremely limited. As this is a three credit UBC course, our final results will have to be completed for the mid-March final product presentation. The time frame in which we have to conduct, analyze, and complete this research is scant. This is precisely why we have chosen to conduct researcher as subject interviews. Exploring the experiences of each other’s is not only valuable, but also practical. Completing a plethora of interviews could be beneficial, but would require us to gain access to districts and teachers. Given the busy schedules of classroom teachers, we deemed that conducting interviews in person or in a survey format might not give us sufficient or accurate information, as teachers would be rushed to provide feedback about their experiences about their induction experiences. Therefore, we felt that interviews of the researchers would be valuable as they represent a cross-section of experiences and the researchers as subjects would have the time to answer the questions thoroughly.
Likewise, as we are all working full time, the ability to complete extensive research is restricted. Given the every day demands of schools and students, we wanted to ensure that the project was not only feasible, but also practical and interesting. Having personal meaning and a connection to the research is very important to us as researchers.
Sample Size:
The sample size for this study will be 3 (n=3). Although the sample size is small, we know that we will still be able to collect valuable information about induction experiences as the participants’ teaching and induction experiences are varied. A small sample size will allow the researchers to go deeper into the experiences, instead of giving a simple, broad overview.
Demographics:
The research will be restricted to high school teachers. This was a practical limitation. Of course we acknowledge that the experiences of elementary school teachers are just as valuable and future research can be done in this area.
Body of research:
The sheer volume of research about induction is overwhelming. While there is a large body of research, we are only examining a small piece of it. We acknowledge that there have been numerous studies in the area of induction and we appreciate the fact that we are not the only ones interested in this subject. We are grateful that we can build upon the findings of other.
Generalizations:
Lastly, despite the fact that the experiences of the participants are worthwhile and give a good snapshot of induction experiences, we understand and acknowledge that we will not be able to make generalizations about our conclusions because of our small sample size. Generalizations cannot be justified from research that is limited in both scope and size.
Answering the Research Question
The analysis of our data will allow us to see the patterns and trends of how districts support beginning teachers. We will find the trends in the interviews, and make comparisons between the district documents, the interviews, and the academic research. In determining how we will answer the question of our research, we must revisit who is the intended audience of our findings. The form in which we present our findings must have a functional purpose.
School Districts:
The school district can be seen as the genesis site of teacher induction policy. Districts will exist along a continuum when it comes to the conception, implementation, and analysis of this policy. Our goal is to make recommendations for school districts such that they will find something applicable regardless of the stage of development they may be in when it comes to beginning teacher support.
Schools and Administrators:
The way in which school-based administrators view teacher induction policies impacts its implementation (Youngs, 2007). In a formal leadership role, administrators have the ability to direct the culture of a school towards one that fully integrates teacher induction practice into the daily working lives of teachers or one which treats it like an activity for the side-lines. Our goal is to provide administrators with evidence of the value of beginning teacher induction.
Teachers:
The teachers represent the invaluable role of both former receivers of induction and potential providers of induction through mentorship opportunities. The answer to our research question will be wide-ranging, as beginning teacher experiences vary immensely. However, our analysis of teacher experience will serve as a springboard from which others can build upon. Our results will validate the experiences of all those who are exposed to teachers induction. Teachers can take our findings and use them to enrich their own understanding and practice as either the recipient or provider of beginning teacher support through induction.
Conclusion
Beginning teachers find their first years challenging. They enter the system with an optimistic view with particular educational values. However, as they struggle to navigate the day to day obstacles of the classroom, they find that they have to abandon many of their pre-conceived notions to survive. This is why our research into teacher induction is invaluable. This support can help beginning teachers survive their first few years while fortifying and sustaining their educational beliefs.